January saw non-farm payrolls jump by a better-than-expected 257,000, and data revisions lifted the totals for the prior two months by 147,000 more. Over the last three months, the economy added more than a million jobs, the strongest pace of labor market growth since 1997.

Here’s some news of interest flowing across the transom Friday morning.

May unemployment rate ticks up to 7.6%

The U.S. Department of Labor published its May jobs report Friday Morning. The DOL says employers added 175,000 jobs last month, with the official unemployment rate edging upt to 7.6%. The underemployment rate, which takes into account part-time and discouraged workers, edged down to 13.8%.

Here’s some news of interest flowing across the transom this Thursday morning.

San Bernardino County tally for Dorner manhunt at $550,000

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has pegged the cost of the manhunt for Former Los Angeles Police Department Officer Christopher Dorner at $550,000. The amount consists primarily of salary and overtime-related costs.

An administrative law judge from the U.S. Department of Labor has ruled in favor of a San Bernardino man who says he was wrongfully fired from an aircraft maintenance company that he worked for at San Bernardino International Airport.

Karen Bleier/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

News Analysis

By DAVID LEONHARDT Published: October 8, 2011 David Leonhardt is The New York Times Washington bureau chief.

UNDERNEATH the misery of the Great Depression, the United States economy was quietly making enormous strides during the 1930s. Television and nylon stockings were invented. Refrigerators and washing machines turned into mass-market products. Railroads became faster and roads smoother and wider. As the economic historian Alexander J. Field has said, the 1930s constituted “the most technologically progressive decade of the century.”

American employers added jobs at the slowest pace in nine months in June and the unemployment rate unexpectedly climbed to 9.2 percent, sending global stocks tumbling on concern the world’s biggest economy is faltering.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sour reports Thursday on the number of people who sought unemployment benefits and buyers of new homes illustrate what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged Wednesday: Many factors weighing on the economy are proving to be more chronic than first imagined.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Employers in May added the fewest jobs in eight months, and the unemployment rate inched up to 9.1 percent. The weakening job market raised concerns about an economy hampered by gas prices and the Japanese nuclear disaster.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Unexpectedly weak consumer spending kept the economy stuck in a slow growth gear in the first quarter and would likely struggle to regain speed amid signs of a slowdown in the pace of job creation.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Weekly applications for unemployment compensation jumped to their highest level since August, largely because of special factors, but a recent upward trend suggests more slack in the U.S. labor market.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — New applications for U.S. unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level in three months, potentially a sign that recent improvement in hiring trends may have slowed.

New claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, bouncing back above the key 400,000 level, while core producer prices clumbed faster than expected in March, government reports showed on Thursday.

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles— The nation’s job-creation engine revved up last month and pushed the unemployment rate to its lowest level in two years, spreading optimism that the economic recovery is firmly in place and giving President Obama a political boost.

The unemployment rate fell to 9.4% in December, the Labor Department reports, but employers added only 103,000 jobs, far below what had been expected. The numbers suggest that the drop comes from workers’ giving up looking for jobs.

By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times January 8, 2011

Reporting from Washington —

The U.S. economy created fewer new jobs last month than expected, a painful reminder of just how slow the overall recovery may be despite recent signs of stronger consumer spending and hiring by some employers.

Although the unemployment rate dropped dramatically to 9.4% in December, the government reported, employers added only 103,000 jobs, below many analysts’ expectations. The report on average weekly work hours was also disappointing.

By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times January 8, 2011

Reporting from Washington —

The nation’s unemployment rate dipped last month to the lowest level since the spring of 2009. Still, the economy created substantially fewer new jobs than had been expected – a painful reminder of just how slow the jobs recovery may continue to be.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a surprising setback, the nation’s unemployment rate climbed to 9.8 percent in November, a seven-month high, as hiring slowed across the economy.

Employers added only 39,000 jobs last month, a sharp decline from the 172,000 created in October, the Labor Department reported Friday. The weakness was widespread. Retailers, factories, construction companies, financial firms and the government all cut jobs last month.

The U.S. lost more jobs than forecast in September, reflecting a decline in government payrolls that shows the damage being done by rising budget deficits.

Employers fired 95,000 workers after a revised 57,000 decrease in August, Labor Department figures in Washington showed today. The median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a 5,000 drop. The unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent.

The jobless rate in the U.S. is likely to approach 10 percent in coming months as the economy fails to grow enough to employ people rejoining the labor force, economists said.

Private payrolls climbed 67,000 in August, after a gain of 107,000 the previous month, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent, the Labor Department reported Sept. 3. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists called for an increase of 40,000. The economy expanded at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the second quarter, down from 3.7 percent in January through March.

President Obama meets construction workers after speaking at a Recovery Act highway project in Columbus, Ohio, in June.

by Scott Horsley September 3, 2010

Whatever happened to recovery summer?

This was supposed to be the season the economy heated up, thanks to a wave of public works projects, funded by the government’s stimulus program. But summer is coming to an end, and the recovery has not taken root. (The Labor Department on Friday reported a slight rise in the unemployment rate to 9.6 percent in August as more people were looking for work.)

The number of initial claims in the week ending Aug. 14 rose 12,000 to 500,000. This is the third consecutive weekly increase.

Claims are at their highest level since Nov. 14, 2009. The consensus forecast of Wall Street economists was for claims to inch lower. The four-week average rose 8,000 to 482,500.Claims in the previous week were revised to an increase of 6,000 to 488,000 compared with the initial estimate of an increase of 2,000 to 484,000.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Private employers added fewer workers to their payrolls in July than expected and hiring in June was much weaker than had been thought, a blow to an economic recovery that is failing to gain traction.

The dismal news on jobs poses a challenge to Democrats hoping to retain their congressional majorities in November elections, as well as to officials at the Federal Reserve who are debating whether more needs to be done to foster growth.

The nation loses 125,000 jobs in June, but the unemployment rate falls to 9.5% as more workers leave the labor force.

By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times

July 3, 2010

Reporting from Washington —

A disappointing new jobs report provided the latest and sharpest sign yet that the economic recovery may be losing momentum and that few industries are ready to spur job growth to replace the millions lost during the recession.

The June employment report released Friday by the Labor Department suggested that with stimulus money running out, Washington in the mood to retrench and the private sector still struggling, it probably will take years to overcome the 7-million-plus jobs deficit.

A fresh batch of weak economic news Thursday heightened concerns about the staying power of the fledgling recovery, with more uninspiring news expected Friday when the government reports on the May job market.

FOR THE RECORD: This article incorrectly says the government will report on the May job market Friday. It will report on the June job market.

The number of pending home sales plunged 30% in May from April, to the lowest level since at least 2001, an industry group reported Thursday, reflecting a larger-than-expected fallout from the expiration of the federal tax credit for home buyers.

Initial jobless claims rose by 25,000 to 471,000 in the week ended May 15, exceeding the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and the highest level in a month, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The number of people receiving unemployment insurance and those getting extended payments fell.

We hear so much hoop-la over the proclaimed “stabilizing” jobs market and how there’s new job creation taking hold.

Forget about all those temporary census jobs that evaporate in July.

However, lift up the sheets on the unemployment numbers and you have cause to be concerned. The “adjusted” unemployment rate published by the U.S. Department of Labor remained unchanged at 9.7% in the latest reading published last week.

White House apologists were quick to point to the unemployment rate decline from 10 percent to 9.7 percent as evidence that the recovery is gathering momentum and that President Obama’s policies — especially his $787 billion economic stimulus bill Congress approved last February — are “working.” But the back story behind the figures provides cold comfort.

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) — The unemployment rate in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped to 9.7 percent in January, indicating the labor market may be poised to climb out of its deepest slump since World War II.

More than half a million Americans found work, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington, helping push the jobless rate to the lowest since August. A separate survey of employers showed payrolls declined by 20,000 as construction companies and state and local governments cut back.